[Copyright (c) 1994 Stuart Lachs from a work in progress. No part of this article may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the author.] Web Address: http://www.human.toyogakuen-u.ac.jp/~acmuller/articles/USZEN3.htm
Zen Buddhism became widely known in America through D. T. Suzuki's writings, which
promoted a non-traditional, modernist interpretation of Zen. Suzuki was a Japanese writer
and intellectual who had experienced Zen training as a layman, and who, writing in the
nationalistic intellectual climate of early twentieth-century Japan, emphasized a Zen
freed from its Mahayana Buddhist context, centered on a special kind of "pure"
experience and without the traditional Buddhist concern for morality 1.
This view, represented today by Abe Masao and the "Kyoto School" of religious
philosophy, accentuated those aspects of Buddhism that are both most different from
Western traditions and most distinctively Japanese. This view has fostered in the West a
widespread conception of Zen Buddhism as a tradition of exclusively cognitive import,
inordinately preoccupied with the ideas of Sunyata, non-duality, and absolute nothingness
but with little talk of karma, Marga (the path), compassion or even the "marvelous
qualities" of Buddhahood. Such a view fails to give adequate attention to the
positive disciplines, including morality, that comprised the actual lives of Buddhists,
and easily leads one to think that Buddhists are unable to treat the ordinary world of
human activity seriously.2 This view has also placed extreme emphasis
on the suddenness of enlightenment with the accompanying idea that to cultivate
"correct views" is considered as self-improvement, i.e. gradualism.
Zen Buddhism was received in the West by a largely university-trained community who
accepted, by and large uncritically, the modernist view presented by Suzuki. Perhaps the
greatest attraction of Zen for Americans of this period (post-WWII) was to the notion of
pure, enlightened experience with its promise of epistemological certainty, attainable
through systematic meditation training.3 Unlike psychologically-based
movements for personal transformation whose leaders appeared as seekers themselves, Zen
Buddhism promised, in the person of the teacher, a master who had actually realized the
Buddhist goal of Enlightenment and manifested its qualities continuously in his daily
life.
American Zen students have tended to hold these teachers in awe, to the point of regarding
their every action as pure and selfless. This tendency to idealize the teacher comes in
part from the students' inexperience, but is strongly encouraged by the Zen organization
and the teacher himself. Recently I heard an American roshi on the radio promoting his
book. He emphasized the uniqueness in zen of the lineage of "mind to mind
transmission" from Shakyamuni to the present and how the roshi speaks for or stands
in place of the Buddha. Having been attracted to Zen Buddhism by the presence of an
"enlightened person," the students came to regard the teacher's behavior as
beyond criticism, an unrealistic attitude that had unfortunate consequences.
Beginning in 1975 and continuing to this day, a series of scandals has erupted at one Zen
center after another revealing that many Zen teachers have exploited students sexually and
financially. This list has included, at various times, the head teachers at The Zen
Studies Society in New York City, the San Francisco Zen Center, the Zen Center of Los
Angeles, the Cimarron Zen Center in Los Angeles, the now-defunct Kanzeon Zen center in Bar
Harbor, Maine, the Morgan Bay Zendo in Surry, Maine, the Providence Zen Center and the
Toronto Zen center. These are some of the largest and most influential centers. In most
cases the scandals have persisted continually for years, or seemed to end only to arise
again. At one center, for example, sex scandals have recurred for approximately
twenty-five years with the same teacher involving many women. These scandals have been
pervasive as well as persistent, affecting almost all major American Zen Centers.
It should be emphasized that the source of the problem lies not in sexual activity per se,
but in the teachers' abuse of authority and the deceptive (and exploitative) nature of
these affairs. These affairs were carried on in secret and even publicly denied. The
students involved were often lied to by the teachers about the nature of the liaison. In
some cases the teacher claimed the sexual experience would advance the student ' s
spiritual development. One teacher justified his multiple sexual affairs after their
discovery as necessary for strengthening the Zen center. Presumably, this was because the
women involved were running satellite centers of his and having a secret affair with the
"master" would deepen their understanding and practice.
The abuse of power that these men practiced has had far reaching effects in almost every
case. The students involved were often devastated by the knowledge that they had been used
by the very person they trusted most. Some required psychotherapy for years afterward.
There were mental breakdowns and broken marriages. Zen centers were torn into factions of
those who deplored the teacher's behavior and those who denied or excused it. The
apologists, when they did not flatly deny what had occurred, would explain it away as the
teacher's "crazy wisdom" or more commonly, they would blame the victim or
dismiss it by commenting that the teacher isn't perfect. Another explanation was that the
student did not yet truly understand the teaching. Disciplining of Zen teachers in America
has been rare. Usually, those who objected to the goings-on either left voluntarily or
were pushed out of the center by those loyal to the teacher or by the teacher himself.
Some of the students who left eventually resumed their practice while others were so
disillusioned and embittered that they abandoned Buddhism altogether.
American Zen teachers who have been exposed in their abuse of power have seldom been
publicly criticized for their behavior by other Zen teachers, either here or in Japan. In
one case, members of the Japanese Zen hierarchy threatened to cut off the training of one
student who had wanted an abusive Japanese monk deported. The complaining student did in
fact keep quiet, finished his training, and is today a well-known roshi. The monk in
question is the roshi already described who has been exploiting his position for
twenty-five years.
Reflecting on these problems has led me to investigate Zen history more closely,
especially certain key terms that have come to characterize Zen Buddhism. What, for
instance, do the terms "dharma transmission" and "roshi" mean which so
pepper the conversations of American Zen students and bestow so much authority on the
teacher? Is dharma transmission infallible? What does the tradition itself say about
regulating the behavior of monastics? Is Zen alone among religions, in having no moral or
ethical dimension as many practitioners believe? Are these matters unique to permissive
American culture? Do we have an overly idealized view of Ch'an/Zen history? Is there
something in our practice that is "lacking" if the supposed exemplars of the
training cannot deal responsibly with the people and situations around them? We should
keep in mind that from the Zen view truth cannot be expressed in words but rather alluded
to only in the spontaneous and natural activities of daily life.4 Is
koan training in particular being done in a way that does not carry over to how one lives
one's life in the real world? Or, more fundamentally, is koan training mistakenly regarded
as fulfilling the Buddha's path in itself? Has it become an end in itself? Is zen training
and koan study in particular not about liberation, but more a unique training in
spontaneity and learning to perform in certain stylized manners? Are there some aspects of
the teacher/student relationship that need to be changed? What weight, if any, should be
accorded the subsequent dharma transmissions of a disreputable teacher? What meaning does
the term "monk" itself have? How much of Zen, as practiced in the West, is
really East Asian but mostly Japanese culture with its special authoritarian and
ritualized character?
A full treatment of these questions goes beyond the scope of this paper, but I believe
these topics call for examination and thoughtful discussion. The crux of the matter comes
to this: how does the institution of Zen Buddhism actually operate in the world as opposed
to how we expect it to function based on the mostly idealized view that we have accepted
uncritically.
What, then, is the content of this idealized view? First, let us consider the meaning of
the term "dharma transmission." According to the widely held view, dharma
transmission is the recognition by the teacher that the student has attained the
"mind of the Buddha" and that his understanding is equal to that of the teacher.
It is the continuity of this chain of enlightened minds supposedly unique to Zen and going
back to the historical Buddha that is the conceptual basis for the present teacher's
considerable authority. From the point of the Zen tradition it is dharma transmission that
justifies regarding the teacher as the Buddha, which is what the Ch'an tradition has done
since the Tang dynasty.5 It is this use of a spiritual lineage as the
basis for authenticity ("a separate transmission outside of the scriptures" )6 rather than a particular text that distinguishes the Ch'an school from
other Chinese Buddhist sects of the period. This interpretation would imply that dharma
transmission is given solely on the basis of the spiritual attainment of the student. On
investigation, the term "dharma transmission" turns out to be a much more
flexible and ambiguous term than we in the West suppose. To be sure, it is given in
recognition that the student has attained as deep a realization of mind as the teacher
himself. This view, and correctly only this one, is sometimes called "mind-to-mind
transmission." Mind-to-mind transmission logically implies the enlightenment of the
disciple. However, Dharma transmission has been given for other reasons. According to some
scholars, dharma transmission has actually been construed as membership in a teaching
lineage, awarded for any of the following, presumed legitimate, reasons: to establish
proper political contacts vital to the well-being of the monastery, to cement a personal
connection with a student, to enhance the authority of missionaries7
spreading the dharma in foreign countries, or to provide salvation (posthumously, in
medieval Japan) by allowing the deceased recipient to join the "blood line" of
the Buddha. In the later Sung Dynasty (AD 960-1280), at least, dharma transmission was
routinely given to senior monastic officers, presumably so that their way to an abbacy
would not be blocked.8 Clearly, enlightenment was not always regarded
as essential for dharma transmission. Manzan Dohaku (1636-1714), a Soto reformer,
supported this last view citing as authority the towering figure of Japanese Zen, Dogen
(1200-1253).9 This became and continues to this day to be the
official Soto Zen view.
Philip Kapleau relates the story that Nakagawa Soen Roshi, of the Rinzai sect, had told
him that he (Soen Roshi) did not have kensho when Gempo Roshi appointed him his successor.10 According to one scholar's interpretation, formal transmission
actually constituted no more than the ritual investiture of a student in an
institutionally certified genealogy.11
As a lesson in the significance of institutional history, let us look at the present-day
Soto sect in Japan. This sect strives to match the institutional structures of Dogen's
time when every Soto temple had to have an abbot and every abbot had to have dharma
transmission. In 1984 there were 14,718 Soto Zen temples in Japan and 15,528 Soto priests.
Since every abbot has to be a priest, it follows that almost every Soto priest (95%) has
dharma transmission. It should be noted that a majority of these priests will spend less
than three years in a monastery. Most interestingly, while there is much written in Soto
texts on the ritual of dharma transmission, there is almost nothing on the qualifications
for it.12
The term "roshi" has also been used in a variety of ways. Once again, a rather
idealized interpretation prevails among Zen students who take "roshi" to mean
"master," i.e. someone who is fully enlightened to the point that his every
gesture manifests the Absolute. Historically in Japan, "roshi" has indeed
sometimes been understood to indicate rank based on spiritual development while at other
times it is used as a term of address connoting no more than respect. There seem to be
occasions in Japanese (especially Soto) usage when it merely denotes an administrative
rank. There is no central authority in China or Japan or anywhere else that certifies
anyone's official passage into roshihood based on any criteria and certainly not on
spiritual attainment. It is not a misstatement to say, as Soko Morinaga Roshi, the former
President of [Rinzai] Hanazono College, once remarked, "A roshi is anyone who calls
himself by the term and can get other people do the same."
An interesting example can be seen in the person of Philip Kapleau. Mr. Kapleau uses the
title " roshi " and his students, as do most Zen students, address him as such.
Mr. Kapleau has been extremely influential, both through his personal teaching and his
writing of books and articles, in spreading Zen in America and abroad. If nothing else, he
has taught for many years and remained free of scandal, something that a number of others
with officially sanctioned dharma transmission and titles cannot say. However Mr. Kapleau
himself has explicitly stated that he is not a dharma heir of his teacher, Yasutani Roshi,
and did not receive the title roshi from him or anyone else.13
Essentially, he took the title himself. This is not to say he is or is not any more or
less qualified than anyone else. Interestingly, Mr. Kapleau has " transmitted "
to some of his disciples. This is essentially a line beginning with himself, contrary to
all other Zen lines, which at least rhetorically maintain the myth of an unbroken lineage
dating back to Shakyamuni Buddha.14
"In Korean Zen, the equivalent of roshi/Zen master, the pangjang, is
surprisingly an elected position and carries an initial ten-year term... If the master
does not perform adequately, a petition by fifty monks would be enough to have a recall
vote... A monk's affinities are more with his fellow meditation monks than with a specific
master".15 This is extremely different from the Japanese model
which is commonly assumed by Americans to be the only authentic form.
The term "monk" is another word that calls for some scrutiny. The Chinese term
means "left home person" and is applied exclusively to individuals who have left
their families and follow the rules for monks, which include celibacy among other
requirements. The Japanese use the same word (obosan) for both "monk" and
"priest, " and permit marriage as do some Korean sects.16
In America when used by Zen people who are part of lines originating in Japan, the term
"monk" has no well-defined meaning. Celibacy is seldom implied in the American
usage of the term. A man who calls himself a monk may be married, may live with someone,
or may be dating. A similar situation prevails for nuns. It may even be the case that a
"monk" may date a "nun." Some people who refer to themselves as a monk
or a nun may in fact be celibate, but they would be a minority in the American Zen world.
Nor do American Zen monks appear to follow the other requirements of rules for monks, such
as avoiding entertainment, liquor, and socializing with members of the opposite sex. One
American Zen group has gone so far as to institute a new ritual, "spiritual
union," to recognize and legitimize a sexual relationship between members who
otherwise view themselves as a celibate monk and a nun.17
The idealization inherent in the terms "dharma transmission," "roshi"
and "monk," has contributed to the problems we have experienced in American Zen.
By the very nature of the roles the student ascribes to the titles, he routinely gives
trust to the teacher that he would not give to anyone else. This trust is often quite
complete and natural, because the wearing of the robes traditionally signifies the turning
away from selfish motivations, the vow to save all sentient beings and not to inflict
harm. To an observer not familiar with this type of religious practice, the extent to
which a student surrenders can appear astonishing. Many people accept this kind of trust
in spiritual practice, but it leads to problems when the teacher is not emotionally mature
or disciplined enough to assume the responsibility for guiding students. Though the
teacher may have some level of attainment, it is too often far from the idealized view of
the student or from that promoted by the Zen institutions. "In the Ch'an tradition,
the rhetoric maintains that each transmission is perfect, each successor is the spiritual
equivalent of his predecessor... the primary feature is its participatory nature; to
receive certification of enlightenment from a Ch'an/Zen master is to join the succession
of patriarchs and enter into dynamic communion with the sages of ancient times. One either
belonged within the lineage of enlightened masters or not; there is no in-between category
i.e. 'almost enlightened' or 'rather like a master'".18
In Zen, one can identify a two-fold process, looking-in and looking-out. Looking-in
includes the process of meditation; looking-out includes taking the teacher as a model for
living and as an inspiration for practice. As is common in Gnostic-type religious
practice, the teacher in Zen is the final arbiter of reality. Not only does the teacher
judge the student's level of insight/wisdom, but, for closer students at the least, will
often comment and judge on every aspect of the disciple's daily life. However, as we have
seen, there is often a serious disparity between the student ' s view of the teacher and
the teacher's actual life. The students don't hold the teacher to any standard of conduct
not merely because they feel they themselves lack the authority to make such judgments
about the teacher. They also fear that criticisms which undermine the teacher's authority
would cast doubts on the value of their years of practice under that teacher. Some have
also come to feel protective of immature Zen institutions in the United States, and
hesitate to contribute to the damage that public scandal could cause. Others fear their
own rise to a position of teacher would be jeopardized.
As noted earlier, while D. T. Suzuki and others have led people to believe that there was
no prescribed Zen morality, a different picture emerges if we look at the historical
beginnings of Zen. In China, where Zen began, Zen monasteries became distinct from other
Buddhist monasteries with the famous rules of P'ai-chang (749-814) who supposedly
prescribed a strict code of behavior for members of the monastic community and severe
penalties for improper behavior. All of the classical accounts of Pai-chang's founding of
an independent system of Ch'an monastic training, it turns out, may be traced back to a
single source, "Regulations of the Ch'an Approach" (Ch'an-men Kuei-shih) written
in approximately 960 A.D.19 According to this text, "If the
offender had committed a serious offense he was beaten with his own staff. His robe and
bowl and other monkish implements were burned in front of the assembled community, and he
was [thereby] expelled [from the order of Buddhist monks]. He was then thrown out [of the
monastery] through a side gate as a sign of his disgrace. The rules applied to everyone.
P'ai-chang further recommended that "a spiritually perceptive and morally
praiseworthy person was to be named as abbot." This definitely implies a moral and
social aspect to Ch'an life. This is the logic of Zen from its earliest formulation as a
distinct Buddhist sect.
If students have offered excessive power to teachers, that does not tell us why so many
Zen teachers have taken advantage of the opportunity to abuse their power. Not all of them
have, after all. The question arises, which does not often get asked in America Zen
circles, what is the connection between attainment and behavior? What are we to make of
the evident disparity in someone with institutional sanction, i.e. dharma transmission,
supposedly having deep insight but behaving irresponsibly? It is difficult to understand
why teachers with exalted titles and long years of meditation practice behave in such
selfish, self-serving, dishonest and destructive ways? The Platform Sutra itself
states that, "If we do not put it (wisdom) into practice, it amounts to an illusion
and a phantom."20 One partial explanation could be that of
Chih-i (531-597) the founder of T'ien-t'ai Buddhism and author of the most comprehensive
guide to Chinese meditation, who was aware that the very effort of intense concentration
may agitate the klesas (afflictions and illusions) generating various feelings and
desires that would not occur during normal consciousness, tempting the practitioner away
from practice.21 In any case, rarely does one question the teacher's
level of attainment.
Could the problem have something to do with the description and view of enlightenment as
static, in the sense of seeing only what is, rather than a more dynamic view which also
involves that which functions? A view of Buddhist attainment that also focuses on
function, rather than objectifying an experience, would also place primary emphasis on
context and connections, i.e. relationships with other people and society as a whole.22
The question of the relationship between enlightenment and cultivation has persisted in
the Zen tradition from the end of the eighth century onward. Enlightenment in this context
refers to the experience of deep insight into the true nature of reality. Cultivation may
be taken as living one's day to day life from the enlightened point of view which includes
an awareness of other people's full humanity and our connectedness with them.23 Ma-tsu (709-788), a major and influential Ch'an teacher, claimed
that the sudden enlightenment experience was inherently so thorough that the whole of the
Buddha's path was realized and completed in that experience. This view came to be known as
"sudden enlightenment/sudden cultivation." Other major Zen teachers, such as
Tsung-mi24 (780-841), Yen-shou (901-975), and the Korean, Chinul
(1158-1210) took the view that sudden enlightenment might bring full attainment, but
perhaps only for exceptionally endowed individuals such as the Sixth Patriarch Hui-neng
and Ma-tsu. For the more ordinary run of mankind, who are less spiritually talented, the
enlightenment experience indeed offers a true view of one's self-nature, but without
exhausting selfishness. Some delusions, such as existential bewilderment, may be overcome
by a deep experience. Other more deep-seated delusions such as craving, hatred and
conceitedness can only be overcome by making "that which we have seen a living
experience and molding our life accordingly."25 The Buddhist
injunction to live an ethical life is comprised of not only exercising restraint and
self-control, but also of positively manifesting compassion in our dealings with other
people. Ch'an master Yen-shou put the matter in this way:
If the manifesting formations are not yet severed and the defilements and habit energies
persist, or whatever you see leads to passion and whatever you encounter produces
impediments, then although you have understood the meaning of the non-arising state, your
power is still insufficient. You should not grasp at that understanding and say, "I
have already awakened to the fact that the nature of the defilements is void," for
later when you decide to cultivate, your practice will, on the contrary, become inverted.
... Hence it should be clear that if words and actions are contradictory, the correctness
or incorrectness of one's practice can be verified. Measure the strength of your
faculties; you cannot afford to deceive yourself.26
As a matter of historical fact Ma-tsu's line survived and has dominated the Zen tradition
from the Sung dynasty (960-1280) to this day while Tsung-mi's line, for instance, died
out. The result is that the view that sudden enlightenment entailed sudden cultivation
became the official rhetoric of Zen Buddhism. The opposing, but still orthodox, Zen view
that sudden enlightenment had to be followed by gradual cultivation, has largely been
de-emphasized. In Tsung-mi's words, "Awakening from delusion is sudden; transforming
an ordinary man into a saint is gradual."27 Most teachers are
hardly fully enlightened Buddhas, but are people who need to cultivate themselves further.
We need to keep this in mind when we interact with them. Though in Zen practice we must
focus on our own shortcomings, there remains a place for common sense in viewing the
actions of others, even those of our teachers. The Dalai Lama has written concerning the
student's view of the teacher, ". . . too much faith and imputed purity of perception
can quite easily turn things rotten."28
1. According to Suzuki, Zen is "extremely flexible in adapting itself to almost
any philosophy and moral doctrine as long as its intuitive teaching is not interfered
with. It may be found wedded to anarchism or fascism, communism or democracy, atheism or
idealism, or any political or economic dogmatism." Zen and Japanese Culture,
Princeton University Press, 1959, p. 63. For a fuller discussion of the sources and
nationalistic motivations of D.T. Suzuki's presentation of Zen Buddhism see the article by
Robert H. Sharf, "The Zen of Japanese Nationalism, " History of Religions,
August, 1993. Bernard Faure also analyzes critically some of Suzuki ' s thought in Ch'an
Insights and Oversights, Princeton Press, 1993, pp. 52-74
2. Paths To Liberation; the Marga and Its Transformations in
Buddhist Thought ed. by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Robert Gimello 1992, U. of Hawaii
Press, p27.
3. see "Buddhism and the Rhetoric of Religious Experience."
delivered at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion, 1992, p. 37,
Sharf.
4. "Encounter Dialogue and Transformation in Ch'an" by John
R. McRae in Paths to Liberation, ed. by Robert Buswell and Robert Gimello, U. of
Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 354.
5. p 195 "On the Ritual Use of Ch'an Portraiture in Medieval
China, " T. Griffith Foulk and Robert H. Sharf, Cahiers D'Extrême Asie
7
6. For an interesting discussion of the rather late and even
controversial acceptance of this self-defining idea in Ch ' an see " Ch ' an Slogans
and the Creation of Ch ' an Ideology: ' A Special Transmission Outside the Scriptures,
" a paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion by
Albert Welter, November, 1995.
7. Holmes Welch, Buddhism in China: 1900 to 1950, Harvard
University Press, 1967, p. 315. Welch gives the interesting case of one Chinese monk in
the twentieth century who gave dharma transmission to another Chinese monk then in Burma,
"without ever having met him, and indeed, without even finding out whether he would
accept the dharma."
8. "Myth, Ritual, and Monastic Practice," by T. Griffith
Foulk in Religion and Society in Tang and Sung China, ed. by Patricia
Buckley Ebrey and Peter N. Gregory, U. of Hawaii Press, 1993, p. 160.
9. Soto Zen in Mediaeval Japan, William M. Bodiford, U. of
Hawaii Press, 1993, p. 215. "Zen dharma transmission between master and disciple
could occur whether or not the disciple had realized enlightenment, just so long as the
ritual of personal initiation had been performed." For a further discussion of
the surprising usages of dharma transmission see: Welch previously cited, The Rhetoric
of Immediacy, Bernard Faure, Princeton University Press, 1991, and Foulk. See also
"On the Ritual Use of Ch'an Portraiture in Medieval China, " T. Griffith Foulk
and Robert H. Sharf, Cahiers d'Extrême Asie, 7, 1993 pp. 149-219
10. Letter from Philip Kapleau to Koun Yamada, Feb. 17, 1986.
11. See Sharf[2], footnote 20, p. 44
12. The Zen Institute in Modern Japan" by T. Griffith Foulk, P.
157-177 in Zen:Tradition and Transition, Kenneth Kraft ed., NY: Grove Press,
1988.
13. Public letter from Yamada Roshi 1/16/86. Koun Yamada Roshi was
Yasutani Roshi's heir. He became the leader of the Sanbokyodan school of Zen started by
Yasutani Roshi and also gave dharma transmission to Robert Aitken. Also , letter from Mr.
Kapleau to Koun Yamada 2/17/86
14. It is also true that almost no modern scholar of Zen, Eastern or
Western, takes seriously the idea of an unbroken Zen lineage going back to Shakyamuni
Buddha.
15. The Zen Monastic Experience, " Robert E.
Buswell, Princeton University Press, 1992, pp. 204-208
16. From 1910-1945 Korea was under the military occupation of Japan.
Under the pressure and influence of married Japanese Zen priests, some Korean monks took
wives and started families. This caused a split with the traditional, celibate monks in
the Korean Sangha that became so severe that in 1954 President Syngman Rhee was called in
to resolve the dispute. see pp. 30-31, The Way of Korean Zen by Kusan Sunim,
Weatherhill, 1985.
17. Mountain Record Magazine, vol. XII, number 1, Fall, 1993,
p. 59, a publication of Zen Mountain Monastery, Woodstock, NY.
18. "Encounter Dialogue and Transformation in Ch'an" by
John R. McRae in Paths to Liberation, ed. by Robert Buswell and Robert Gimello, U.
of Hawaii Press, 1992, p. 353,354.
19. The Ch'an "School" and its Place in the Buddhist
Monastic Tradition, Ph.D. dissertation of Theodore Griffith Foulk, University of
Michigan, 1987, available from UMI Dissertation Information Service, U.S. telephone
number: (800) 521-0600, p. 348
20. The Platform Scripture, trans. by W. T. Chan (New York,
1963), p. 69.
21. Paths to Liberation, "Encounter Dialogue and the
Transformation of the Spiritual Path in Chinese Ch'an, " McRae, p. 347
22. In relation to the famous verse of Bodhidharma: A separate
transmission outside of scripture
Not founded on words or letters,
Point directly to one ' s mind
See one ' s nature and become Buddha. (Jpn. kensho jobutsu)
In the Rinzai koan curriculum, " ...kensho is something that one does
[a verb, not a noun], it is not primarily something that one has. " from "
Koan and Kensho in the Rinzai Zen Curriculum, " an unpublished paper
presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion by G. Victor Sogen
Hori, Nov. 21, 1994. Permission to quote granted by the author.
23. For an interesting discussion of essence/function and "
integral practice, " the idea that the degree of integration into one ' s behavior
was the criterion for achievement of the teachings of the sages see A. Charles Muller, The
Composition of Self-Transformation Thought in Classical East Asian Philosophy and
Religion. " Toyo Gakuen Kiyo, March, 1993.(Also available on the World Wide Web at
http://www2.gol.com/users/acmuller/index.html)
24. Tsung-mi was a patriarch in both a Ch'an line and the Hua-yen
sect of Buddhism. He wrote the most complete analysis of Ch'an Buddhist sects in ninth
century China. For a full treatment of this important Ch'an personality see Tsung-mi
and the Sinification of Buddhism, Peter N. Gregory, Princeton University Press,
1991.
25. see The Jewel Ornament of Liberation by SGam.Po.Pa, trans.
by Herbert Guenther, Shambala Publications, 1959, footnote 1, p. 252.
26. The Collected Works of Chinul, Robert Buswell, U. of
Hawaii Press, 1983, p. 305. This entire book is a treasure for Zen students. Of special
interest is the chapter entitled, "Excerpts from the Dharma Collection and Special
Practice Record with Personal Notes," written one year before Chinul's death in which
he comments on varieties of enlightenment experience and how careful one must be in one's
practice. Modern Korean Zen still bears the strong imprint of Chinul.
27. The Collected Works of Chinul, Buswell, p. 278
28. Snow Lion Magazine, Winter Supplement 1995, p. 1.